Poll about the impact of the purge

[Skinny Puppy]

I don’t give a rat’s ass about Richard now. He can go fuck himself, or Josh, whichever cums first.

I’m here now and I’m here to say. This site has been good enough to take me in after that fiasco at RDNet, I’d feel like an asshole to leave here if Richard says, ‘Sorry you stupid, mindless Fucks, I made a boo-boo!’ And then go running back to him.

Soon (hopefully) we’ll have the majority of the RDNet guys and gals here. All that’s really changed is the IP address that we log into.

Richard and Co, can blow themselves to death, which I think they will. They’ll have Josh’s idea of a forum, but hopefully you’ll be able to fire a canon there and all you’ll hit will be ass-kissers.

I’m here… and I’m here to stay!

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Or he was beguiled and deluded by a conniving twat with his own agenda that constantly reassured him that everything was under control and there would only be a modicum of dissent.

If he fell for that then he still doesn't deserve my respect, nor any of the rest of yours, because that would be a stupid thing to believe. There are times when the buck stops with the guy at the top - no excuses, whatever the ins and outs of who did what - and this is one of them.

Nobody that is in charge of a large organisation knows everything that goes on. they delegate responsibility. Sometimes, they pick the wrong person to delegate to. This shit happens in every company, foundation and government. RD is not all-seeing and his interest in the forum has always been peripheral compared to his lectures, books and spreading the word about his vision of atheism. It is easy to blame the man at the top but far wiser IMO to take a step back and wait to see if they are deserving of that blame.

XC - face facts. Nobody - and I do mean NOBODY - allows someone to close an internet forum which bears their name, and then start mass deleting accounts and posts in such an arbitrary manner, unless they are...

a) an arrogant cunt

or

b) a senile old fart who has lost the ability to control what is being done in their name

Remember we're not talking about a glitch the size of what happened in 08 here - the forum has been effectively closed down. Finito. If you think Dawkins can not know about this either you're engaging in wishful thinking or you're admitting that he's gone senile.

Please don't try and pin me down to either-ors. I am simply saying that all of the facts are not known. We know that Josh is a cunt because we know exactly what he did. We do not know how much of what he did has been passed on to Richard, how much RD directly ordered/sanctioned, how closely Josh's vision of the new forum matches up with what RD actually asked him to do.

I don't think Dawkins is blameless in this but I refuse to choose between him being Stalin or a drooling, senile imbecile simply because you claim they are the only two options. That is nothing but a strawman. Let's see what facts emerge over the next few days and weeks before leaping to the nearest conclusion, shall we?

[Heresiarch]

Does that make Josh

?

Nope:

[Arse]

We not only know that Josh is a cunt, we also know he has gotten away with being a cunt. That in itself tells you that RD is either a bad leader or a weak one. Now, if something emerges which proves me wrong on that I'll take it back, but I won't be holding my breath waiting for it.

[Shaker]

Please don't try and pin me down to either-ors. I am simply saying that all of the facts are not known. We know that Josh is a cunt because we know exactly what he did. We do not know how much of what he did has been passed on to Richard, how much RD directly ordered/sanctioned, how closely Josh's vision of the new forum matches up with what RD actually asked him to do.

I don't think Dawkins is blameless in this but I refuse to choose between him being Stalin or a drooling, senile imbecile simply because you claim they are the only two options. That is nothing but a strawman. Let's see what facts emerge over the next few days and weeks before leaping to the nearest conclusion, shall we?

[PennJillette]Thank'yer Jesus![/PennJillette]

[Conny]

At some conference or interview a year ago or so, didn't RD say something about his website being a good mix of people with good contributions and also some people there enjoying camaraderie and even space for off-topic humour...
I cannot remember when he said that, but i know he did, at least i remember something like that.

I can imagine his disappointment to see what has happened. I don't think any of them expected this. But the way they handled it, it is in retrospect, their fault.

[Matt H]

One thing's for sure, next time I am in a conversation and someone says "Richard Dawkins, he's an arrogant sod isn't he?", I'll say, "Yes" instead of "No". The thing about Richard is, I've always agreed with about science and religion but I've never had much time for his politics. As for his personality, I wanted to believe he was just misunderstood, that he was only ever unpleasant to those who were unpleasant to him. But I see now that can't be the case, if he can't be respectful towards his own staff then how can he be respectful to us?

[tytalus]

Although I put my vote down for 'quite', as I would say over there, I consider it one of the perks of being a skeptic that I have no heroes, no objects of worship. I don't have to like Dawkins to respect his arguments or the work he does that I approve of.

But I was a skeptic long before TGD came along, and I valued the forum for its sense of community, which is now lost and will not be back, seemingly, in its next incarnation. Judging from the purges going on there, even if this were reversed somewhat, it's lost stuff that we will miss. If I had some way to contact Dawkins directly, I would let him know that his action/negligence has left me a bit cross with him.

[virphen]

I'm prepared to reserve judgement until I see how he handles it from here.

Personally the bare minimum I'd consider acceptable is an unreserved apology to all forum members, and a few freebies from the store to the former mods and admins (if they'll take it).

Until then, innocent until proven guilty (in the sense that he's been shoved into a cell on remand until the trial).

[ED209]

Very surprised and not a little disappointed that so many are answering with anything other than the first option, TBH.

Yes Josh is a saggy-faced bell-end who will never have sex with a lady except out of pity on her part and even then with frequent breaks for her to steady her resolve and clear the bile rising in her throat, but I don't quite know how I might argue that Richard Dawkins personally owes me the bandwidth to maintain the pontifications of my online ego in perpetuity. It's an undeniable shame that so many thousands of well researched posts should be taken down and I'm cheered that Nineberry reckons he can archive them effectively. If Dawkins doesn't want a shouty sweary forum associated with his foundation and name then fair enough (maybe Hitchens would have taken it off his hands ). The implementation is the sole problem and we know who is responsible for that. At least when that greasy-palmed micro-penis'ed admin next sits in a job interview and is asked for an example of how he has managed change in the past, he'll have nothing more successful to claim than the capricious overnight destruction of the world's largest and most established science and religion discussion community and the loss of thousands of hours of written output from the (mostly) highly educated and intelligent membership...

Anyway I'm a minority voice on that issue, so to the future. Just what does a forumful of atheists who all hate Richard Dawkins still have to talk about? Oh wait there's a technology and games subforum here.....fucking great....and search probably works and everything. Smilies are better....life goes on

[JimC]

A very even spread of opinions showing in the poll...

I went for "A little bit...", but that does not quite capture my opinion. I agree with others that the full story has not yet come out, but also that RD must take at least some blame for the mess himself.

But being critical of him in that particular aspect of his life does not reduce my respect for him as a science writer and atheist communicator (even though I have some disagreements with parts of his style)

[Feck]

RD was never my hero ...don't think I have any (well maybe a couple but's not relevant in this thread) it is true that certain threads and attitudes in OLD RDF could be seen as not suitable for the (we are not worthy) great RD to associate with . This could have been sorted out years ago the OT forum could have been headed by a HUGE disclaimer that said RD had no control over the topics, language or the subject matter . For well over a year they have been trying to shut the gate after the horse has fucked off ... including a little white lie about charity funding ... Personally I think RD and the management never understood that the forum had a life and an ethos that was not under their control . When they killed OT they thought Everyone would come crawling back tails between their legs .
The statements they made at that time showed little evidence that they understood that, RDF esp OT was bigger ,and more important than them .
The recent changes ,they thought could be implemented without to much trouble because they had got away with it before. They did not think that a large number of prominent forum members and most of the Mods they depended on would actually take the brave stand they did .When they realised the outrage they had caused could not be put down as easily as last time they started to panic .When Ratz started leaping in and offering to rescue everyone they were left with no choice but to pull the plug . They will not cry too much about the exodus because you ALL have been labelled as trouble makers they will be vigilant that all of this is buried and say to themselves "So we lost a couple of Hundred members ,and they were the headstrong ones, we still have thousands "
Oh and wait for Rationalia members to be blamed for fucking up their "smooth transition to a better forum" .


BTW I think that is my longest post ever .

[M]

RD was never my hero ...don't think I have any (well maybe a couple but's not relevant in this thread) it is true that certain threads and attitudes in OLD RDF could be seen as not suitable for the (we are not worthy) great RD to associate with . This could have been sorted out years ago the OT forum could have been headed by a HUGE disclaimer that said RD had no control over the topics, language or the subject matter . For well over a year they have been trying to shut the gate after the horse has fucked off ... including a little white lie about charity funding ... Personally I think RD and the management never understood that the forum had a life and an ethos that was not under their control . When they killed OT they thought Everyone would come crawling back tails between their legs .
The statements they made at that time showed little evidence that they understood that, RDF esp OT was bigger ,and more important than them .
The recent changes ,they thought could be implemented without to much trouble because they had got away with it before. They did not think that a large number of prominent forum members and most of the Mods they depended on would actually take the brave stand they did .When they realised the outrage they had caused could not be put down as easily as last time they started to panic .When Ratz started leaping in and offering to rescue everyone they were left with no choice but to pull the plug . They will not cry too much about the exodus because you ALL have been labelled as trouble makers they will be vigilant that all of this is buried and say to themselves "So we lost a couple of Hundred members ,and they were the headstrong ones, we still have thousands "
Oh and wait for Rationalia members to be blamed for fucking up their "smooth transition to a better forum" .

BTW I think that is my longest post ever .

And it had full stops and everything.

[Feck]

And it had full stops and everything.

Missed a few comma's

[M]

And it had full stops and everything.

Missed a few comma's

And apostrophe,s.